84 NEIGHBOURS UNKNOWN 



The lonely lake, smooth as a mirror 

 between its flat, desolate shores, spread pink, 

 amber, and gold toward the cloudless pink 

 and orange sky, where the sun had just sunk 

 below the wooded horizon. All the way up 

 the lake, on one side, the shore was an un- 

 broken stretch of treeless barren. On the 

 other side the low, dark, serried ranks of the 

 fir forest advanced almost to the water's 

 edge, their tops like embattled spear-points 

 against the coloured sky. From this shore 

 a spit of sand jutted straight out into the lake. 

 On its extremity, his magnificent bulk and 

 lofty head black against the pellucid orange 

 glow, stood a giant bull-moose, motionless as 

 if modelled in bronze. His huge muzzle was 

 thrust straight out before him, as if he was 

 about to roar a challenge. His wide, pal- 

 mated antlers were laid back over his shoulders. 



Far down the lake a solitary huntsman lay 

 beside a dying camp-fire, and gazed at the 

 splendid silhouette. A faint puff of the 

 aromatic wood-smoke, breathing across his 

 nostrils at that moment, bit the picture into 

 his memory so ineffaceably, that never after 

 could he sniff the smell of wood-smoke on 

 evening air without the desolate splendour of 

 that spacious and shining scene leaping into 

 his brain. But he was a hunter, and the great 



